Saturday, 17 March 2012

INDIA CAMPUS NOW ARTS FESTIVAL AND IDOLATRY

December 20, 2011

RAMZIYA ASHRAF watches Durabhiman Hatya, Noor and Ayesha – three plays staged by SIAS team at C-zone and praises the team members.

Arts fests are always exciting. It’s during such fests that you learn
a lot of things you are not taught in the classroom; teamwork, passion,
perseverance and other stuff you never think are important, but later
discover that they are really what life’s all about. The past few weeks
were definitely memorable for many of us at SIAS. Fine arts competitions
started in the last week of November and lasted for about two weeks.
Then it was time to prepare for C-zone inter-collegiate arts fest, held
at SNDP YSS College, Angadipuram. Rehearsals were in full swing; more
students could be found outside rather than inside classes. The college
was in near chaos. The teachers frequently grew tired of continuously
herding everyone into class and finally gave up. The preparations were
hectic, with events getting cancelled and restarted on and off. Fine
Arts secretary, Shamnas and other union members could be seen walking
about the campus with sleep-deprived eyes, and stacks of papers in their
hands, trying to get everything organised.
Drama is an art where creativity, talent and intellect blend
together. It’s a combination of different art forms. When the characters
you read, write, meet and hear about come to life in front of your
eyes, it’s magic. SIAS students worked this magic on the audience at
C-zone in three different languages.
With the presence of Noushad sir and Nazarullah sir, dramas have been
an unavoidable part of SIAS’ C-zone participation for the last two
years. Under their guidance and leadership, students from various
departments geared up to act. Time proved to be the villain in our
preparations for C-zone. Thanks to the inconveniences of the semester
system, the university’s late declaration of college elections and other
technical reasons, we got barely a week to practice. The selection of
actors for different roles was the biggest snag that our union members
had to cross. Once they had managed to find enough students, things
started running a little smoother. The enthusiasm and sincerity of the
participants added fuel to the practice sessions. They happily agreed to
come for rehearsals on weekends. There were warming-up sessions, which
helped them to shed off their inhibitions and taught them the basic
lessons of being a stage-performer. The casual and friendly attitude of
the teachers definitely boosted up their self-esteem and confidence.
The English and Hindi dramas were scheduled to be staged on December 13th. Hindi drama – Durabhiman Hatya, about
inter-caste romance and dishonor killings in northern India – was to be
staged first; anxiety levels were very high-up. No surprise, since they
were the least prepared among the three, and hadn’t had the chance to
rehearse with all their properties even once. Most of them were not
well-versed with the language, and memorising the dialogues was in
itself a big task for them. The technically-poor stage of the host
college didn’t help matters either. There was not enough space onstage,
no proper lights system and there were huge gaps at the sides through
which properties fell off mid-performance. But despite all these, the
students performed well, considering the time they got to practice.
Apart from a few dialogue misspells and confusion with the missing
property, it was a fine performance. The team – led by Vishnu, Fayas and
Fasna – deserves praise for their dedication. Next came the English drama – Noor, a
brilliant script originally written by Akber S Ahmed, discussing the
plight of a girl (played by Farha) being kidnapped by invading US
soldiers. Her three ideologically different brothers (Dhanish, Fuad and
Shimnas) try to tackle the crisis without letting their dying father
(Rony James) know the truth. Our abridged version was close to perfect.
The act was way better than all the rehearsals put together. Everyone
gave their best; and they had the audience spell-bound. Each character
had an originality and life; something that is quite difficult to
achieve. I guess that the final component that renders perfection to an
actor’s performance is the stage. The spotlight gives the final wrapping
around the package you present to the audience. Had we brought our own
lights like the team that bagged the first position did, I’m sure we
would have stood first, rather than second. But after all, it’s not the
ranks that matter.
The Malayalam drama –the celebrated Ayesha, scripted by
Noushad sir – was staged the next day. It was touching and perfect.
Mehna and Farjas convincingly presented the graceful relationship in the
plot. Noushad’s villain was welcomed by the audience with applause. The
effect of lights, which the other two plays didn’t have, and the
background music added to the wonderful performance of the actors. The
audience heartily accepted Ayesha, and sympathised with her fate. But
yet again, time proved to be a villain. The performance exceeded the
specified time-limit of 30 minutes by a margin of 2 minutes. But the
applause and compliments showered on the actors brought a glow of
satisfaction on their faces; and that was reward enough.
There are certain people apart from the participants who deserve a
mention here. The teachers, who kept aside all their engagements and
spent their days and nights with us – teaching, guiding and inspiring us
to achieve great heights; the union members and students who worked
backstage as stage and property managers, at the lightings and sounds.
Without their presence, none of this would have worked out the way it
did. Most of the students who accompanied the drama team assisted in
whatever small way they could. It was their eagerness to help and their
moral support that kept the performers going and stimulated them to give
their best. The sleepless nights and exhausting workload of the union
members finally paid off. Another important person not to be forgotten
is Sabu sir, the fine arts advisor, whose presence was felt every day at
the C-zone venue. Maya ma’am and Radhika ma’am also contributed their
part, with their presence and love.
The C-zone team returned back with a load of memories and feelings of
satisfaction. The experience was unforgettable; more than the prizes we
bagged, there were certain other accomplishments that could never be
substituted. The feeling of being in and working with a team, the
lessons of perseverance – of trying and trying until you succeed; and of
course, the journey back in the college bus – where everyone was
literally slumped one on top of the other!

FATHIMA SHIYANA attends the national day for the mentally challenged at Chelari and shares the warmth she felt. Chelari:
It was awesome. Mentally challenged children from across the district
coming to attend a big get-together. Their parents and siblings helping
those innocent kids. Their smiles, tears, joys and angers. The mentally
challenged kids paint with rainbow colours on canvas, they dance, sing
and celebrate. One moment, you wonder, aren’t they like other children,
too? Very “special children”, they are, indeed. They offer a lot of
warmth with a hug, a touch, a smile, innocently and humbly. When they
paint, they follow rules of an unknown world. When they dance, they make
a new rhythm, of compassion and sweetness.
Malappuram ‘Sheshi’ Charitable Society and Calicut AWH conducted a
programme on the National Day for Mentally Challenged at Liberty
auditorium, Chelari on Dec 8. Around 200 mentally challenged children assembled there with their parents and other family members.
Autism is a special disorder of neural development characterised by
impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and
repatative behaviour. This day is observed for presenting the problems
faced by the children and their families in front of the world. Various
competitions were conducted. The children actively participated in
painting, singing, dancing competitions and proved that they are
mentally special persons.
Adv.KNA Khader MLA formally inaugurated the function. He promised
that the state government will fully support the needy children.
Kalliyil Firoz, Thenjipalam Panchayat president presided over the
function. V.Jameela,Vallikkunnu Panchayat president, Zeenath Ali Bappu,
Parappanangadi Panchayat president, Musthafa,Vallikunnu Standing
Committee Chairman, PVS Padikal, National Teachers Award Winner,
K.Janardhanan, Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samithi president etc
felicitated in the function.
In the seminar followed by the inaugural session, Krishnamoorthy,
Malappuram Social Welfare Officer, Dr. CP.Aboobacker, Calicut AWH, spoke
on the topic ‘Autism-problems and solutions’. They discussed about the
new government schemes like Pratheeksha, Aashwasakiranam for the
mentally challenged. The session followed the distribution of prizes to
the winners in various competitions.

December 11, 2011

VRINDA VENUGOPALSIAS: Campus is getting ready for the arts
festivals. The Calicut University C Zone festival is commencing on
December 12, 2011 at SNDP College, Perinthalmanna. The Off-stage
competitions will be conducted on December 12 & 13 and stage items
will be held from December 13 to 15. Students of SAFI Institute of
Advanced Study is preparing to take part in the C Zone arts festival.The
college off-stage programmes have been conducted on December 1, 2 and
6. Ms. Akhila of first year Biotechnology and Mr. Shameel Ahamed of
third year B.Com excelled in off-stage programmes with a number of
prizes. The college arts fest is expected to be held in January.
There are 111 participants for this year’s C Zone from our campus. We
are taking part in 40 off-stage programmes and 15 stage competitions.
Participation in off-stage is high. Students along with fine arts
coordinator Mr. KT Sabu (lecturer in Economics) are taking all efforts
to assure the triumph. Practice of Malayalam, English, Hindi drama,
Kolkkali, Oppana, Folk Orchestra, Mappila Song, Group song etc. is in
full swing. “We are preparing well despite our all limitations. It is
unfortunate that we did not get enough time for preparation. As our
election delayed, we got less time for grouping and other preparations
like arranging trainees. We have promising talents here. The only
problem is lack of time. Still, we hope our students will perform well
and raise SIAS’s fame in the C Zone venues. We will work to improve our
previous achievements”, says Shamnas, college fine arts secretary.
Last year we have won a handful of prizes in arts, We were in a
leading position in off-stage items and have also made a fine record in
stage items also. Our Hindi drama team has even awarded third prize in
Interzone level.C Zone Off-stage Time Schedule:December 12, 2011, Monday
10.00 am- Essay Writing (All languages), Pencil Drawing
11.00 am- Collage, Water Colour
11.30 am- Story Writing (All languages), Cartoon Drawing, Oil Painting
12.00 noon- Spot Photography
2.00 pm- Poster Making, Embroidery, Versification (All languages)

December 9, 2011

Curtain raised for the 16th IFFK at Thiruvananthapuram. Reports Campus Now Special Correspondent from Thiruvananthapuram.

Kairali and Sree theatres, two main venues of IFFK

Thiruvananthapuram: Long queue was in front of
Kalabhavan theatre to receive delegate passes, in the morning. Another
queue for festival book and bags. Soon, it was learnt that there was a
Mass ‘theft’ at the counter. Festival books finished. Delegates had to
collect schedule and bags as they wanted. Festival mismanagement starts
and the festival too…
These are the routine scenes from the venues of the 16th chapter of
the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) organised by the Kerala
state Chalachitra Academy for the Department of Cultural Affairs.
Thiruvanathapuram is again enjoying the ecstasy of hosting the esteemed
film festival of Kerala. The festival is from December 9, 2011 to
December 16, 2011.
The festival is inaugurated by Mr. Oommen Chandy, Chief Minister,
Kerala. Bollywood cine stars Ms. Jaya Bachchan and Mr. Ompuri were the
chief guests of the function. Mr. Bruce Beresford (Australian
filmmaker), Jury Chairman; Mr. KB Ganesh kumar, Minister for cinema; Mr.
VS Shivakumar, Minister for Transport and Devaswom; Mr. KC Joseph,
Minister for rural development, planning and culture; Mr. Shashi
Tharoor, Member of Parliament; Ms. Sukumari, cine artist; Mr.
Priyadarshan, filmmaker etc. were also present. Under The Hawthorn Tree, the Chinese film by Zhang Yimou was the inaugural film.

Under the Hawthorn Tree

Despite some hoots and shouts, the function went smooth. Film lovers
crowded at Nishagandhi auditorium to witness the function. A cliche
Kadhakali was performed as an exhibition of tradition of Kerala. Some
unnoticed placards raised at the venues advocating the Mullaperiyar
issue. Kerala University Journalism students have prepared bulletins,
book, booklet which filed the festival bag along with a Janayugam
Supplement.
The first film at Kalabhavan was Pickpocket, a 1959 French movie directed by Robert Bresson. A Screaming Man,
directed by Mahamat- Saleh Haroun, at Kairali theatre tells about the
violence struck Chad state in Africa. A swimming champion turned pool
attendant in a hotel is forced to give his son to state army to fight
against rebels. It is indeed a good movie to watch.
Almost all the students of third semester MCJ and three students from
first semester MCJ of SIAS are participating the festival. Ms. Sajna,
Lecturer in Chemistry, SIAS is also accompanying them. Mr. Mohammed
Juman, lecturer in MCJ, SIAS has already joined the fest.

December 8, 2011

ATHULYA EPSIAS:SAFI Institute of Advanced Study conducted a
seminar on the much discussed Mullaperiyar issue. Dr. Dinesh,a senior
scientist with the Centre for Water Resources Development and Management
(CWRDM) talked in detail about the history and the potential threat of
the dam failure. All students and staff memebrs participated in the
seminar. The gathering was welcomed by the college union Chairman
AbdulYasar. Prof. Kuttyalikkutty, Principal of SIAS, delivered an
introductory note. Dr. Dinesh began his words about the history of
Mullaperiyar dam.

Dr. Dinesh talks in the session

The Dam was built in 1895 in Kerala in the river Mullaperiyar.
Mullaperiyar dam is part of our pre-independent history. On 29 Oct 1886,
a lease indenture for an unheard of and unfair period of 999 years was
made between the Maharaja of Travancore Vishakam Thirunal and the
Secretary of State for India for periyar irigation works. The lease
agreement was signed by the Dewan of Travancore V. Ram Iyengar and State
Secretary of Madras state J C Hannigton. Later, in 1970 the lease rent
was enhanced and revised to allow Tamilnadu to genareate power
supply. After elaborating on hte history, Dr.. Dinesh talked about the
design, limitations of the construction of dam, structural weaknesses. A
potential failure would simply wash away four districts and 35 lakh
people, with billions of assets and major cities. The talk was concluded
with three steps to protect the dam: immidate, medium and long-term
measures. The seminar ended with vote of thanks by Jawad, General
Secretary of the college union.

November 29, 2011

MUHAMMED VILAYIL documents the relevance of Libraries in
the historic occasion when SIAS digital library is about to start
functioning.
SIAS campus is on the high heel of pleasure to sign in the new world
of knowledge, as a variety of titles array over diverse subjects will be
a click away. The flamboyant ceremony of the Dedication of SAFI to the
Nation by the honourable Vice President of India, Mr. M Hamid Ansari has
set fire to the hopes and dreams of a campus community who genuinely
stick to their passion of learning and knowledge production. SIAS
Digital Library stands magnificent to nurture this passion.
The human society cannot survive without being learnt all the past
intellectual contributions as well as updating with the growing and ever
adding knowledge in the domain of various disciplines such as
Humanities, Social Sciences, Science and Technology etc. To prevail over
this problem, man has discovered libraries. Today libraries have become
the essential ingredients of a civilized society and its contribution
is more towards education, research and training.Empowerment
of a society, as history proved, is marked by crossing the illusory
frontiers of knowledge; of different branches, whether it would be
absolutely materialistic discipline or not. The quench for wisdom has
obviously worked behind every ruling classes of world history in
assuming power, even though it would be malpractice in much of the
areas. Ancient Greek Masters had produced not only great disciples of
knowledge, but dictators, emperors and colonizers were sprouted out from
the relics of their own wisdom. In the glorious period of Islam,
Medieval period, they were rightly the producers of knowledge.
Mathematics, for example, had got right concern over this period and
side stepped into several branches. Having reigned over the existing
power of knowledge, the Medieval Muslims successfully ensured the
political security, economic stability and high profiled social status.
These brilliant scholars also tried the best to document all pages of
their achieved knowledge to smooth the progress of to the coming
generations, they exhibited and stored it in special spaces; it later
assumed the form of libraries.
Education cannot exist alone in the absence of library, and library
has no meaning if it cannot impart education. Education is an eye-opener
to a human being; it gives him perfect, adequate knowledge, creates
civic and rational sense, and withdraws him from the subjection of low
habits, selfish passions, and base pursuits. While library is an
instrument of self-education, a means of knowledge and factual
information, a centre of intellectual recreation, and a beacon of
enlightenment, it provides accumulated and preserved knowledge of
civilization.
In 1971, Michael S. Hart created the first e-book by typing the
United States Declaration of Independence into a computer storage
device. Early e-books were generally written for special areas and a
limited audience, meant to be read only by small and devoted interest
groups. The scope of the subject matter of these e-books included
technical manuals for hardware, manufacturing techniques and other
subjects. In the 1990s, the widespread accessibility of the internet
made transferring electronic files much easier, including e-books.
Numerous e-book formats, emerged, proliferated and some supported by
major software companies such as Adobe with its PDF format, and others
supported by independent and open-source programmers.
Digital libraries offer opportunities for e-learning that are not
possible in their physical counterparts. Digital libraries have the
potential to offer unprecedented resources to support e-learning. It is
expected that around 50000 e-books would be available at SIAS Digital
Library.

V K HARISThalassery: “Social media has by and large become a
public sphere which democratizes the information and the knowledge”,
said Mr. Prabhash, Vice Chancellor, University of Kerala inaugurating
the University Grants Commission (UGC) sponsored three-day national
seminar on Politics and Social Media: Commons in the Space Online organised by Department of Political Science, Government Brennen College, Thalassery, held on October 12,13 and 14, 2011.
Dr KP Satheesh, Principal, Government Brennen College presided over
the function. Dr. Achuthsankar S Nair, Director, Centre for Bio
Informatics, University of Kerala made the keynote address. He expertly
analysed the pros and corns of the new media. “The new generation is in a
complete hallucination without any direction while they live through
social media”, he pointed out.
In the three day seminar, research scholars from reputed institutions
presented their papers on different areas of social media and politics
ranging from politics of online and democracy, online social movements,
digital divide and civil society online. Each session followed an open
forum. The participants, who have high academic potential, from media
and cultural realm including the think-tanks of JNU, University of
Pondicherry and other Central Universities, actively interacted with the
speakers on dais which sometimes led to hot debates.
Dr. PP Shaju, Course Director, Department of Mass Communication and
Journalism, Kannur University, Dr M Ramakrishnan, Associate Professor,
Department of Philosophy, Benild Joseph, Digital Securty Consultant and
Sub Editor with Hacker 5 magazine and Core Member in Indian Cyber
Army, Avaneet Kaur, research scholar, Department of Political Science ,
Delhi University were among the key speakers at the seminar. Biju PR,
Assistant Professor in Political Science, Brennen College convened the
programme.
Ayoob Rahman, Aneesh AP, Haris VK and Vishnu Prasad KS were the delegates from SIAS Media School.

P SANDHEEP
The film Adaminte Makan Abu, directed by Salim Ahammad,
tells the story of Abu, a perfume seller, who postponed his pilgrimage
to Mecca to next year with the perfect faith in God.

A scene from the film

The Hajj was a lifelong dream of Abu and his wife Ayishu. Abu is not
unaware of the Islamic law which directly excludes the disabled people
from the compulsion of Hajj, even though he earned coins and currencies
of ten, twenty and hundred to fulfill his dream and cleared his visa and
other papers for pilgrimage.
Once Abu was compelled to cut down the tree in front of his house,
which he preserved instead of his prodigal son, to get enough money. But
the tree gave him only useless void trunk. Abu’s comment ‘some child
may be useless’, is also meant to the tree which he treated as his son.
The film tries to tell a story that Malayalam Cinema never heard
which has a taste of Sufism, virtue of a real man and the society around
him. One of the main specialties of the film is the casting of Salim
Kumar as Abu. Molywood viewers acquainted with Salim Kumar as a
comedian, reserved for slapstick jokes. But he surprised the viewers
with his unforgettable acting in the film.
The story of Abu shows how Sufism is connected with every walk of
life in all its meanings. Love to each and every beings, faith in God
and never lasting hope make the character of Abu rich from its basin.
When the pilgrimage fails, he thinks that it is because of displanting
the tree. He consoles his wife with the hope that the pilgrimage can be
done in the next year. After planting a new tree, he walks to the mosque
and that is the end of the film.Adaminte Makan Abu is of course a different film which
happened after a long time like a rain in the summer. There may be
people who are arrogant at rain. But Abu never said a useless word on
rain.
The casting of the film except the role done by Suraj Venjarammoodu
is really perfect. The performance of Suraj, a tea shop owner, who
becomes a saint at the end is somewhat disappointing one. The film is a
fine integral of love, dreams and hopes, just like the dream of Abu, the
perfume seller.

November 25, 2011

KHADEEJA RAMZIYAThrissur: Management meets aid students in developing
their skills and competencies that are required of them in the corporate
world and equips them with better communication and presentation
skills. Participating in such meets boosts their confidence levels and
self-esteem. The Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), an
educational institution run by the Westfront Higher Education Trust,
Thrissur organised such a meet in which the students from the Department
of Commerce and Management Studies (DCMS), SIAS participated in full
form. The meet, named Padmavyuh – 2011, was organised by the
MBA students of the host college and included commerce and management
students – both at the UG as well as PG level – from various colleges
under Calicut University.

Fuad abdussamed MT

Twenty five students from SIAS, including 10 participants from both
first and second year and 5 viewers along with 3 teachers left for IMT
on Wednesday, November 16, 2011. For majority of them, it was a first
experience. Naturally, nervousness and anxiety levels were quite high.
But injected with the encouragement from their teachers and peers, the
participants gave their best in the events. In the ‘Best Manager’event,
Shamnas Mohammed, II B.Com was selected in the qualifying round. In the
Business quiz, out of 30 colleges, 7 colleges including SIAS were
selected after the preliminary round. Fuad abdussamed MT, II BBA and
Fahed Khader, II B.com, who represented SIAS, competed dynamically,
beating other colleges, including PG students and reached the finals.
The other sessions of the meet included Stock Game, Human Resource Game,
Marketing quiz etc.

Fahed Khader

More than the academic events, the students of SIAS gained popularity
among the participants and organisers by entertaining them with their
creative talents. In between the various sessions, as the organisers
called for students to get on stage and present programmes of their
wish, our students enthusiastically relented. They sang, danced and
captured the hearts of the people present there. The Padmavyuh
Management Meet was definitely a confidence-boosting event for SIAS DCMS
students.

November 21, 2011

NIMMY BHASKARANSIAS: Accomplishing ostentatiously the Dedication of
the Campus to the Nation and the Inauguration of the Digital Library
and the Cultural Centre, the students and staff of SIAS were dined with
grand feast by the SAFI Management on Monday noon. The students queued
up themselves with the lunch coupons in a festive atmosphere. Student
volunteers took the charge of distributing the well-packed biriyani
and even the cleaning and disposal of wastes. It was like a reward to
the students and staff for their sincere and hard efforts on the last
Friday.

The venue of the function held on 11-11-2011

It was an auspicious and memorable score in the history, when SAFI
campus was dedicated to the nation by our Vice President, Mr. M Hamid
Ansari on Friday, 11 November. The entire SIAS family was working all
along to mount the dignity of the campus. All the students
wholeheartedly worked and proved their excellence and it was widely
appreciated by the Management, audience and the security officers.
Committees were formed for the easy functioning of the grand programme
and SIAS family made it a victory. This feast was a feast to their great
commitment. Moreover, it was a sharing of love.

The Indians

Members of the South African Indian community, some in traditional dress.

The Indians in South Africa had long lived under the shadow of
government policy that considered them as aliens against whom it was
legitimate to discriminate. In one of their exchanges, Jan Smuts told
Gandhi bluntly, ‘Your civilisation is different from ours. Ours must not
be overwhelmed by yours. That is why we must go in for legislation
which must in effect put disabilities on you.’ Yet the government did
not have a free hand. Commonwealth ties, pressure by the government in
India and the Indian Agent in South Africa, and after 1945 the United
Nations, together with local Indian protests and resistance, all put
pressure on successive governments. The result was a policy towards
Indians that was confusing and contradictory, and satisfied no one.

Indian sugar cane workers

The government’s ideal solution would have been wholesale
repatriation, but in the early 1920s an average of only 2 500 Indians
left per year. At that point there were some 141 000 Indians living in
Natal and 15 000 in the Transvaal. To placate the voters the Smuts
government intended to segregate Indian trade and landownership, but he
refused to give the Natal provincial government its way when it passed
an ordinance abolishing the Indian municipal franchise. After 1924 the
new Pact government passed the ordinance into law. The Indians were now
completely disenfranchised.
In 1927 Dr D.F. Malan, on behalf of the Pact government, unexpectedly
signed the Cape Town Agreement with the government of India. It offered
some hope to Indians, although it was decidedly ambiguous. On the one
hand, the Union government undertook to introduce a scheme of assisted
emigration to India; on the other, it committed itself to settle the
Indian question in a manner that ‘would safeguard the maintenance of
Western standards of life in South Africa by just and legitimate means’.
It stated that the Union government ‘like every civilised Government’
had the duty to take all viable steps ‘for the upliftment of every
section of their permanent population’. It further asserted that the
‘considerable section of the Indian community who will remain part of
the permanent population should not be allowed to lag behind other
sections of the population’.
To give effect to ‘upliftment’, the government undertook to launch an
inquiry into the ‘admittedly grave situation’ of Indian education and
to improve the facilities for Indians at the South African Native
College in Fort Hare. It also would investigate housing and sanitary
conditions in Durban.

A young Indian woman with a necklace made from the gold coins with which workers were at one stage paid.

Critics pointed out that in signing the agreement Dr Malan implicitly
made the promise of upliftment conditional on growing numbers of
Indians leaving. The latter did not happen, and discrimination continued
but it was no longer possible to state categorically, as Malan did in
1922, that the Indians were an alien element. Using gaps in the law and
the contradictions in the system of oppression, the Indians managed to
take what chances there were. G.H. Calpin in his book Indians in South Africa, published in 1949, noted:
Indians in South Africa often wonder whether it is not a disadvantage
to be British subjects. They still feel, however, that to be British
subjects in South Africa is preferable to being British subjects in
India. Indeed after the Cape Town Agreement they settled down with a
sense of security they had never before enjoyed . . . Some might have
very vague ideas of what constituted Western standards of life, and the
European example was not always good, but there was no doubt of their
willingness no acquire the qualifications set for them and meet the
demands made on them.

Two
Indian workers assist a white welder, photographed in December 1948.
Blacks were not allowed to take on skilled work and the law forbade them
to operate steam-powered vehicles.

Education played a major role in the efforts at upliftment and
private Indian initiatives formed an extraordinary part of the progress
that was made as a result of education and training. Christian
missionaries had started the first school for Indians in 1869, but
schools established by the Indian community soon exceeded the number of
mission schools. It was the Indian community that provided the local
funds for their schools under the grants-in-aid system – unlike the
coloured and black communities who relied on churches and missionary
societies, and the whites who received their education virtually free
from the state.
In the first half of the twentieth century four-fifths of the Indian
schools in Natal were state-aided but the Indian community provided the
sites and building for the schools. It was strong community support that
made possible the establishment in 1930 of Sastri College, the first
Indian high school in Natal. A large donation by Hajee M.L. Sultan went a
long way to the founding of a technical college.
Despite the Cape Town Agreement, discrimination continued. The Durban
City Council passed an ordinance denying Indians the right to purchase
land the municipality owned.
Municipalities refused to issue trading licenses. The civilised
labour policy was used to reduce the number of Indians employed on the
railways from 3 000 in 1920 to 500 in the decade after the Pact
government came to power. In the Transvaal the policy was a jigsaw
puzzle making it very difficult for Indians to know where, outside their
own ‘locations’, they could live, trade and own property. Yet despite
the obstacles they could progress, particularly in Natal where Indians
could own property anywhere from the early 1940s.

About the book relating the experiences of Devotees of Swami Vishwananda

One time we were invited by Swamiji to visit his ashram in Mauritius.
We saw and experienced many wonderful and enlightening things there.
One day we visited the house he had grown up in and saw the bedroom he
had occupied as a child. There were several rumours spreading around
that his mother had used a vacuum cleaner to cope with the outpour of vibhuti, which would come out from even the walls. There were literally hundreds of statues pouring out vibhuti in every colour and several pictures crying oil.

In the ashramthere was a bedside lamp which was designed in the shape of the holy family – Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus. It had been in the ashram for
a long time and no one had taken any real notice of it. However one
day, Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus started to cry oil. It didn’t really
cause much of a stir around the ashram,
as there were already several statues crying oil and this was just
another of them. A plate was placed underneath the statue to collect the
oil and to prevent it from flowing onto the desk. When the oil ceased
to flow a few days later, I asked Swamiji what had happened. He said
that someone had touched it carelessly. Swami made a little prayer. Next
day the lamp started crying oil again.

On another occasion we set up a new altar on the ground floor of the ashram and the next morning we found that almost every statue and every picture were shedding vibhuti or oil. There was so much oil coming out of a life-size picture of Shirdi Sai Baba that
it flowed out of the frame and spilled out all over the altar. I was
standing in amazement before the altar which we had so innocently set up
the previous day when Swamiji came up to me just looked at the new
tablecloth which had begun to soak in the oil and started complaining. I
said to him, “Swamiji, you’re not serious?!” All he said was, “Yes…yes,
it’s all God’s grace.” He changed the tablecloth and the next day the
Shirdi Baba picture was covered in vibhuti but was definitely better for the cloth! However there was a Shirdi Baba statue which was crying amrit (nectar),
so much so that we had to keep placing larger plates underneath until
finally the statues were sitting in bowls which were larger than the
statues themselves.

In Sedona, Arizona USA, on his December 2006 tour, Swami Vishwananda
provided an opportunity for me to ask a question I had wanted to ask
him since I had met him almost a year earlier. I wanted to ask him what
the source is of the shakti, or energy I feel frequently in the crown or head area. Often shakti energy
also skims, like electricity, over portions, or over the entire surface
of my skin. Throughout my life I have learned to trust this energy as
an indicator of truth in whatever is occurring at the time that seems to manifest the energy.

My understanding is that the shakti is divine or life energy. In addition, with my background of Christianity and my life-long love for the master Christ Jesus, I have felt that the shakti energy
is the Comforter that Jesus promised he would send. At the Last Supper
when Jesus was telling his disciples that he was to be crucified and would rise again and then leave them, he said:

If
you love me keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he
shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost [Holy Spirit], whom the
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring
all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. But
when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father,
even the Spirit of truth, which proceeded from the Father, he shall
testify of me. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for
you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come
unto you; but if I depart, I will send unto you. The Holy Bible, King James Version, John 14:15, 26; 15:26; 16:7.

Time
revealed that I did not have to initiate the question I longed to ask
Swami, because the omniscient, all-knowing Swami Vishwananda introduced
the topic himself. During the tour, along with Swami, a small group of
us visited one of the world-famous vortices, Cathedral Rock in Sedona,
Arizona. There in the serene, cathedral-like beauty carved out a long
time ago by Mother Nature from red rocks and high, green, desert hills,
Swami led us in devotional chants
and songs. It was one of the most powerful and sacred times I have been
blessed to have with Swami Vishwananda, and in one of the most splendid
and beautiful places in nature on this planet.

On
a subsequent day, Swami was speaking to me of the magnificence of
Mother Nature in Sedona. He said as if in awe or amazement, “On the road
to Cathedral Rock I felt the hair on my arms stand up.” And he
emphasized, “On the road.” I thought, how humble — from someone who inside is in samadhi and in communication with God all the time. I took the opportunity he so obviously was providing me to ask my question: “Swami, when I feel the shakti
energy like you just described you felt on the road to Cathedral Rock, I
think it is Divine energy and also the Comforter that master Jesus
promised to send. Is that right?” Swami replied, “Yes, it is Divine Life Energy, prana, and the Comforter Jesus promised to send.” I was comforted.

Once, I accompanied Swamiji on his entire Switzerland tour; I drove from one end to the other of the tour. There was a Satsang
one evening and I wanted to give him a nice postcard. I’m always very
excited when I have the chance to talk to him. A lot of people formed a
queue after the Satsang and one by one they had a talk with
him. I waited till the end of the line and went to him with a red face
which was a result of my excitement. I wanted to give him the card but
the only thing he said was: “The German people can come in Germany
to me”. I was shocked and deeply hurt. A normal human reaction would
have been to get angry. I was not angry at all. I did not realize at
the time that the emotion of hurt is actually anger turned inside toward
oneself. I felt sad and there were tears in my eyes. I had the feeling
that my heart was going to die. I started to meditate in order to try to
understand why Swami had treated me like this. I finally calmed down
and slowly opened my eyes to see what he was doing.

I received the next shock. A man from Germany was talking to him and
they seemed to be having a lot of fun. That was too much for me. I
closed my eyes again to meditate. It is impossible to describe how many
emotions came up for me, but still I felt a lot of love for Swamiji and
the only wish I had was to understand what he wanted to show me with
this game. At the point of deep meditation
and of self analyzing because of what had happened, I heard Swamiji
laughing very loudly. Withoout thinking I looked up at him and saw him
with his outstretched arm towards me. He gave me a sign to come to him.
He asked me then, “What do you have in your hand?” I gave him the card
that I had wanted to give him earlier. He accepted the card and smiled
at me with a smile which I will never forget. At that moment, I
realized that all this was a big test for me.

Once, in France I asked Swamiji: “Why do some people eat meat?” Swami
told me: “It does not matter what they eat but what they have in their
heart. You don’t need to be vegetarian, it is more important what you
have in your heart: your love, your devotion.

Swami Vishwananda
gives us spiritual guidance. He told us “Find the trinity inside you.”
At that time I saw the world in a dualistic way as this is wrong and
that is right in the darmic way. Swami told me that things in life are
not right or wrong, but that what you do always has its consequences.
For some people it will be good and for other people it will be bad.

That was an important lesson I learnt from him: St. Senoch or St
Pantaleimon, had as much faith and devotion towards Jesus and Mother
Mary as a Hindu saint praying to Rama or Krishna. Both have
unconditional love and total devotion.

One time I did not prepare for my exam. I contacted Swami and said
to him: “I am having difficulty with the upcoming exam.” Swami said,
“Don’t worry I will help.” I took the exam and the result was very good.

When I began my degree, I said to him: “I need a two one.” He prayed
to Mother Mary and then said to me: “Don’t worry you will get it.” I
told him that I wanted to become a barrister. This was five years before
I started the Barrister course (BVC course) and he said: “You will be
able to be a barrister.”

Keep on trying
We were in India on holiday with our family. Our father asked if we
wanted to go to Mauritius. We decided that if we could get tickets to
Mauritius during the time we wanted to go then we would go. If there
were no tickets available then we would go to north India instead.
Luckily, there were three seats available, so we went to Mauritius.

We drove a rental car to the ashram of Swami Vishwananda in Quatre-Bornes, and as we did not have the address of the ashram
we could not find the place. Suddenly, I saw a friend that knew Swami
and I asked him for the address. He gave us directions and I asked this
friend to come with us.
As we arrived at the ashram, Swami was outside watering the Tulsi
plant. He told us that for the past three days he was thinking of us
and wanted to meet us. It was through his grace that we arrived at the ashram.

We wanted to stay longer in Maruritius but we had gone to India with
tickets that were valid for only forty days and that time was complete.
We tried to get the tickets extended but we failed. Swami said we would
succeed in extending the tickets. We met some high officials from Air
Mauritius but they said it was not possible, so we called Swami to tell
him we were having difficulties. He answered “keep on trying”. We went
to the office near closing time for one more time and this time the Air
Mauritius staff did it free of charge and we could even choose the time
of departure.

In the summer of 2007 I went to Swami Vishwananda’s spiritual center
in Germany for a longer period of time than ever before. Back then, I
was still going to school and I wished to spend half of my summer
holidays with Swamiji. It was just half a year ago that we had met for
the very first time, and yet it felt as if we knew each other for ages.
My heart told me that he was my Guru. I never doubted this for a second. But during this summer I became aware of the relevance of the Guru. It became clear to me that having a Guru does not only mean to call someone Guruji and
to bow down to his feet, but that there is a person who loves you
unconditionally and who does everything to help you to realize your true
self. But this also means that first of all our ego needs to be controlled, and this can be at times excruciatingly painful.

Once that summer, I had just come out of the chapel
and Swami was sitting on a white chair in the hallway. He said: “Come
and sit with me.” Next to him there was an empty seat. But I sat down on
the floor. After a short moment of silence he said to me: “Don´t be
worried, everything will be fine, OK?” I answered: “OK.” But mentally I
was wondering what was going to happen with me. After another moment of
silence he turned around to call another boy of about my age. The other
boy came and sat down on the empty chair. A short talk about superficial
subjects developed between the boy and Swamiji. I tried to participate
but they ignored me.

After they finished their conversation Swamiji waved to the boy to
follow him into the chapel. I did not know whether to stay where I was
or to leave. After about three minutes I decided to leave. I had just
gotten up when the other boy came out of the chapel and showed me his
right hand with a big smile on his face. On his ring finger there was
the biggest and shiniest diamond I have ever seen. I smiled back. But
inwardly I felt sad and hurt. “Why does Swamiji not materialize a ring
for me?“ Such were my thoughts. Later I realized that he had foreseen
this inner conflict in me by saying that everything will be fine. Today,
I know that it was my hurt ego which had caused me pain and sadness.
And I know that the gift of his teaching that I had received from him
was worth much more than any diamond. This is what we need to move
closer to God.

I remember the speech Swami gave at the darshan
in Friedrichshafen, when I met him for the first time. He said that the
most beautiful and precious treasures and jewels of the ocean always
are at the deepest spots and that humans do everything to get to them.
We have also to dive deep into the ocean of our heart to get to the most
precious jewel there is- Love.

Swami likes to play. He has this capacity to enthuse you with
something that you found insignificant before. He creates role-plays and
throws himself into them for the pleasure of living and playing.
Afterwards, everyone learns a personal lesson from the event. That is
what is happening on this earth: We are here to learn how to live and
love from every possible and imaginable situation.
Swami is very indulgent and has amazing patience. One evening, he
invited a man to his apartment in Mauritius. This man had aggressively
thrown endless catechist sentences and canonical rules at us. I was
enraged to hear this fanatic. When would he stop? I was ostentatiously
looking at my watch. Swami, unlike me, kept smiling and had taken his
notepad out to take notes! Through this event, I was vaccinated against
any dogmatism and had received a lesson in patience.
Fanatics exist in every religion. God is one, man creates the
differences. Every religion can lead to God. It is a boat on the ocean
of our lives. In one life we are Christian, once Muslim, once Hindu,
another time Jewish, another time Sufi another Muslim, and then we are
born again to become Hindu, Jewish and Sufi thus the soul learns to
practice different religions without becoming dogmatic.
Swami plays in everyday communication. He doesn’t show even a
thousandth of his knowledge. Many times I have realised how I
automatically judge people whom I hardly even know. Swami never judges,
he just loves.
With him, we often don’t know what to think during everyday
communication. He can say a banality with a very serious face, as if it
were an important revelation or give you an important message in a very
casual way. He knows our prejudices and everyone’s fixed ideas.
Because I am afraid to make a mistake, say something wrong and be
laughed at, I once spoke without thinking and supported Swami’s
viewpoint in a conversation, instead of offering my own opinion. Two
sentences later, Swami went in the opposite direction, and I found
myself entangled in my remark, facing my own hypocrisy.
A guru
is someone who removes ignorance and makes you self-realise. Swami does
it while having fun. Life is not sad with him. Yes, we laugh a lot!
Once, Pierre got lost while driving Swami. Swami burst into laughter
in the back of the car as Pierre drove around the same roundabout for
the third time. By the time Pierre found the right way, rain was pouring
downand all the restaurants were closed apart from a diabolical
pizzeria, decorated with plastic ghosts and witches as if it was
Halloween. What a delicious pizza!
Swami likes to sing bhajans, and God’s name in whatever form it takes. He knows every tone, half tone, quarter tone… He tells me about my bhajan singing, “Pritala, you are always half a beat too late!”Ironing
Swami had just received a magnificent robe made of orange silk. It
was shining like no other in his wardrobe. He decided to take it with
him to the retreat and Easter darshan of Lörrach, in April 2006 in Germany. On Easter Monday, about 150 people were present for darshan.
Swami gave me the robe to iron. In the corridor, I set up the ironing
board and plugged the iron in, while Swami was preparing himself for the
ceremony. I was ironing and some people were still walking through the
corridor. Swami opened the door and called me,
- “Pritala, come here. Have you finished?” He asked.
- “Not yet, but I have finished the trouser, It is hanging over
there. If you want me to, I can give it to you”, I replied. I went
towards the trouser but Swami shouted,
- “Pritallllaaaaaa!!!! It’s burning! Look! Ahhhhh!!!”
I ran towards the iron that I had forgotten on the beautiful orange
robe, but it was too late, the robe was burnt. The mark of the iron was
very visible, like a dark red trace on the orange material. I went into
Swami’s bedroom to take a better look, but there was nothing to do, it
was very noticeable. I was in dismay.
- “I am sorry…” I said.
- “It’s spoilt, I can’t wear it anymore now”, said Swami, raising his arms.
- “It’s the back of the robe, so when you are sitting, perhaps the people will not see it”, I suggested.
- “But when I walk, they will see the mark of an iron on my back!” He said.
- “Do you have another robe?” I asked.
- “No, I only have that one, and the others are dirty”, he said.
- “We could cut it above the burn”, I said hopefully.
- “You will sew it by hand now? And one cannot wear a robe like that. It’s not proper”, he said.
- “I am really sorry, what do we do?” I asked.
- “Finish ironing the top of the robe”, he said.
Feeling miserable, I ironed the top. In my mind I went over how it
had all happened. I had just destroyed his robe. The first thing my mind
usually does is to blame others: Why did he call me while I was ironing? He should have seen that I was busy and that he shouldn’t bother me! My second thought is generally blaming myself: I should have been more careful, and put the iron to the side. This was immediately followed by a way to stop me from feeling guilty: I did what he asked me to do, he told me to come and I obeyed. I obeyed so it’s his fault if I left the iron on the robe! The third thought was a bit better: No,
I should have moved the iron. Even if he called me, it’s not a reason
to forget. I should have finished what I was doing and then seen what he
wanted.
I then brought the ironed robe to Swami’s bedroom. Brother Jyotirananda arrived.
- “You know what? He burnt my robe”, said Swami.
- “What? Your brand new robe?” Brother Jyotirananda asked.
- “Yes, look there”, said Swami pointing to it.
I held the robe up in front of the window to show the damage.
- “Where? I don’t see anything,” said Brother Jyotirananda.
He walked closer to the robe while I looked closely as well and turned the robe in all directions.
- “Where do you see it’s burnt? I can’t see anything”, said Brother Jyotirananda.
- “Yes, it was burnt, in the back. There was the mark of the iron, all red”, said Swami.
- “There is nothing, not even a little trace”, replied Brother Jyotirananda.
There was no longer any trace of the mark on the robe. I couldn’t
believe it. I was both relieved and perplexed. I looked at Swami who
asked me:
- “How did you do that?”
- “What do you mean how I did that? You just repaired it and ask me
how I did it? I burnt it and you repaired it. Thank you anyway, I feel
much better”, I said.
- “OK. Leave me alone now, I have to get dressed”, he said.
We left the room and I hurried to prepare myself for the ceremony
that was going to start in ten minutes. Hot stuff, this ironing story!

I was in Mauritius in the summer of 1999 and Swami
had allowed me to be in his presence while he was meditating at night.
During the space of three nights different deities would visit him in
his room.
On the first night the compassionate Mother, Ma Durga
appeared in Swami’s room. She showered love and blessing on me before
leaving. I felt so honoured and elevated with energy after this that I
was not able to sleep. I was so restless I kept asking Swami different
questions about her. Eventually he told me to go to sleep as he was very
tired.
On the second night another form of Shakti (feminine energy) came into the room while Swami was in deep meditation and left, giving us Her blessings.
On the third night again Swami was in meditation and another form of
Shakti appeared. By now I was growing slightly anxious over the last few
nights in fear that the Divine Maha Kali Ma
would pay us a visit! I had heard stories where people had said that
they had been shouted at by the Divine Mother and did not wish to be one
of them!
So on this third night The Divine Mother form that appeared asked me
“What do you want”? Although I was unaware which form of Shakti was
talking to me, I remember that I was in complete awe of Her and Her
energy. Again She asked firmly, “What do you want from me”? I did not
know what to ask of Her, so I looked at Swami for guidance. However, he
was still in deep meditation. She asked for a third and fourth time,
“What do you want”? She was starting to lose her patience with me! I
tried to search my mind for something to say, however I couldn’t come up
with anything to ask her! My mind went completely blank.
As the Divine Mother was beginning to lose her patience with me, I
started to consider that this form of Shakti might indeed be the Divine
Kali Ma. Again I looked at Swami to ask for help; but he was still in
deep meditation. At this point I considered the option of escaping out
of the room. The only plausible way I could see out of the room was the
window; however the bars on the windows restricted my escape! I tried to
re-examine my escape plan again, however the altar in the room was
completely covered in vibhutiandkumkum.
I knew that if I messed this up, in trying to escape, Swami would be
angry with me! Therefore I decided it would be in my best interest to
stay where I was.
I sat quietly and the Divine Mother asked for a final time “What do
you want”? Finally an idea entered my mind. I thought to myself, if I
call this Divine Shakti by Ma Amba, she would appear in the form of Ma
Amba. I foolishly replied, “Just your blessings Ma Amba, just all your
blessings”. A stern voice replied, “I am not Amba Ma I am Kali Ma”!
Acknowledging what an unwise thing I had just done, I quickly asked Ma
Kali to explain Her different forms to me, which she did. Ma Kali
explained that there are nine different forms of Shakti and showed all
nine forms to me. She then explained that She must leave and told me
that in order for Her to leave, I must cut a lemon into two parts, which
I did and She left.
After about fifteen minutes Swami came out of Samadhi meditation.
He looked at me and asked me why I wasn’t sleeping. I explained to
Swami that Ma Kali had appeared and he smiled at me and asked one simple
question. He said, “How did she sound”? I replied, “What? What do you
mean”? He asked again, how did Her voice sound”? I replied, “It was very
nice but compared to Ma Durga she was scary”! Swami gently smiled and
went back into samadhi. At that very moment Ma Kali reappeared
in the room and said in an angry tone, “Am I scary Ravi? This will be
your last day on earth!”
Understandably, I panicked and again tried to escape via the barred
windows but as before I was going nowhere! I quickly asked for Ma Kali’s
forgiveness and she forgave me straight away. She explained that I was
Her child and she would never hurt me. She continued to explain
different aspects and significance of her Kali form and then left.
Swami came out of samadhi and smiled at me and asked again
what had happened. As before I explained to him what had happened and he
laughed. Swami then told me to go to sleep as he had asked me to
accompany him to Port Louis the next day. Swami went back into samadhi
for the third time. I tried to sleep but was not able to as the whole
experience had filled me with so much energy. All of a sudden Ma Kali
appeared in the room for a third time. I thought to myself, what have I
done wrong now!? I tried to escape but I was again trapped in the room
by my guru,
the altar, the bars on the windows and the Divine Mother. I turned to
the Divine Ma Kali who said, “Ravi, I would like to test you, tomorrow
I will appear three times in front of you at the temple. You will need
to recognise me at least once; otherwise it will be your last day on
earth”! Saying this, She left once again.
I was afraid and did not know how I was going to recognise Ma Kali. I
knew Swami would have the answer so I waited patiently for him to come
out of samadhi. After an hour or so, Swami came out of samadhi
and asked me why I was still sitting up looking at him. I told him what
had happened and again he found it very funny. I asked him for his
guidance as to how I would be able to recognise the Divine Ma Kali.
However Swami said, “I am tired now. I think I am going to get some
sleep.” Shocked at his calm reaction I turned to him and said, “How can
you sleep at a time like this! It might be my last day on earth
tomorrow! No more Ravi! You would miss me!” Swami just laughed and
eventually said “The solution is very simple bro, all you need to do is
touch the feet of every woman that enters the temple tomorrow and accept
her as Ma Kali.” I asked him, “Do I need to touch Tina’s feet?”
(Swami’s sister & my cousin sister) knowing that she would make fun
of me for doing so. Swami replied smiling “No you don’t have to touch
Tina’s feet, just touch the feet of married women bro.”
Then Swami went to sleep, however I could not as I kept thinking
about what would happen if I failed Ma Kali’s given test. Before I knew
it, it was 6 am. I got out of bed and went to have a shower and open the
temple doors so that all the devotees could come and take the Lord’s
blessings.
I sat on the temple steps and waited. As every woman would come and
go I would walk up to them and touch their feet. I think they all
thought I was a bit strange! My aunt came and asked me to come in for
breakfast but I refused since I did not want to miss a single woman who
came to the temple, as it might have been Ma Kali. My mother also came
to see Swami that morning and I touched her feet, which she found to be
extremely strange!
At midday Swami came to me and asked if I was ready to travel to Port
Louis with him so I said, “No bro, how can I? I have to stay here and
greet all the women; otherwise I may not be able to accompany you
anywhere ever again”! Swami laughed and called me into his room. There
the Divine Mother appeared. I was afraid that I had already failed the
test that She had set me. She said in a calm voice “I have watched you
all day my son, you have passed the test.” She went on to say, “Ravi, I
visited you now four times in one day. You are very lucky, there are
many souls that dedicate their lives to me and I have not appeared in
front of them.” The Divine mother allowed me to have Her blessings and
told me that as I had passed her test, She would grant me a boon of my
choice. I did not know what to ask for at the time, as my mind had
frozen. I thought to ask the Divine Mother for liberation. However I
realised that I have been blessed with a great guru who would
lead me to liberation. I therefore asked the Divine Mother to appear
whenever I needed Her guidance. The Divine mother chanted a mantra
and then said, “So it shall be.” Before She left She told me that I
should remember She is present in all women and I must make sure that I
treat all women with respect.
I then set out with Swami for Port Louis. While I was there I bought a
picture of Ma Kali, which I asked Swami to bless. On our return Swami
put the picture on his altar, two minutes after doing so the picture was
covered in kumkum. Swami called me into his room and explained
that Ma Kali would always be with me and from time to time She would
come and visit me.The Divine Mother visits again
Just as Swami had said, the Divine Mother did visit me again, this
time in London. I was working in a phone shop and an afro-Caribbean
woman walked into the shop. She was dancing with a big wooden stick in
her hand. As she was drawing a lot of attention to herself my manager
was afraid and wanted to call the police. I told her that I would try to
deal with the woman without police involvement. Before I spoke to the
woman I closed my eyes and asked for my guru’s grace, to enable
me to deal with this situation. I asked the woman how she was. She
replied directly “I want something from you, give me anything from the
store”. I said “I can’t give you something, but I can buy something for
you.” She replied while dancing and jumping “You don’t need to buy me
anything, just give me something”. I tried to concentrate on my guru’s inner voice again and asked him how I could deal with this situation. I could hear my guru
advising me, to not worry and to continue talking to her. The woman
asked a couple of times “Don’t you know who I am? Tell me who I am!” I
thought hard in my mind and thought that this woman could be Ma Kali.
The woman opened her arms as this thought entered my mind and said, “You
recognized me son,” and She hugged me. After doing this she danced
happily out of the shop with her stick in her hand. Swami said to me
afterwards, when he visited London that the Divine Mother would visit me
again.

I went to Mauritius
in 1998, because my grandmother was seriously ill and the doctors had
given up hope informing the family that she did not have long to live. I
remember I visited her first and then went to stay with Swami.
While talking to Swami about the situation he said, “I don’t feel it’s
our grandmother’s time to leave this body. She will recover even though
the doctors have predicted that she has only two days to live”. Two
days later our grandmother’s health had not only improved but she walked
all the way to my uncle’s (Swami’s father) house to visit us!
At the time I was seventeen years old and I was not very
spiritually-minded. I remember one night we couldn’t sleep, so we
decided to go up to the roof and listen to bhajans
on a loudspeaker and dance. We were very excitable and energetic at 2
am in the morning and we were having lots of fun. I recall that Swami
and I were dancing, holding onto each other and spinning out of control
and letting off fireworks! Swami’s mother and sister had tried to
convince us all to turn off the music and go to bed which we eventually
agreed to do around 4 am. Everyone had started to make their way down to
the house to sleep, apart from Swami, myself and another boy who stayed
on the roof.
We started to chat about spirituality.
I found that I was engrossed with what Swami was saying and was
becoming increasingly inquisitive. I asked him some questions about the
universe, my life and spirituality. Swami listened to my questions and
then presented me with a unique and awesome opportunity whereby he
offered to meditate on my questions and ask a divine soul to personally
come and answer them.
Swami began to meditate and about fifteen minutes later I heard an
astounding deep voice from behind Swami ask me “What do you want”? I
turned around to see who was actually talking to me; however I did not
know who it was. Present on the roof was Swami, another boy and myself
and none of us were talking! I felt a powerful energy and some
sort of apparition or light appear behind Swami. I could feel this
energy and see a blue and white tinted light. It felt like a surge of
electricity around me. The other boy present during this time put his
hands together to pray before this divine energy. I did not know what to
say, so I kept silent. The divine being started to talk to me about
myself and also explained to me that Swami was his child, a part of
Himself born on earth in human form to awaken the divinity in us all, to
realize the Supreme Lord. He also spoke to me about my special
connection with Swami.
The divine being then asked me, “Do you remember when I danced as
Nataraja and split the earth into two lands”? I tried to recall any
memory of this event but I could not. However I nodded my head out of
respect to say I remembered, but in reality I did not. I was amazed when
the being then asked me, “What do you want Ravi?” I replied, “Only your
blessing Bhagwan Shankar”. Swami was still meditating at this point.
Shankar Bhagwan then suddenly said, “Your brother is needed, I have to
leave.” I asked “But why?” He replied in a calm manner “Because your
uncle and your cousin are coming now. I have to leave so that both you
and your brother can greet him”. Shankar Bhagwan gave me his blessing
and told me that he would always be with me and left.
At this point I thought to myself that it being four o’clock in the
morning, surely my uncle would not visit us at this time of night. Swami
came out of his meditation
and opened his eyes. As I turned my head, I saw my uncle and cousin
approaching the house. They could not sleep so they wanted to visit us!
Ravi – UK

Cancer is an alarm clock that is really hard to ignore. There’s just
no hitting the snooze button, rolling over, and going back to sleep.
The first I heard of Swami Vishwananda was from Madhevi
in 2002. We made friends when as a researcher she visited the clinic in
northern Switzerland where I spent four weeks in cancer treatment. She
told me Swami would be in Ticino, far south at the end of that month.
She gave me intricate directions to get there but my two little girls
were missing me, I was exhausted and just wanted to get home to the
States. I didn’t forget Swami: There had been something compelling in
his eyes as I’d gazed at his picture on the flyer.
In 2003, I made another trip to Switzerland for treatment. Again, I
was so close to him and my future brothers and sisters but didn’t know
it.
Four years later back home in Rhode Island, I impulsively threw open a yoga magazine I’d never read before and there he was — again.
He was coming to New York, a familiar playground to me. It was to be a
homecoming in many senses. I got a hold of Madhevi and discovered she’d
also be there.
When Swami entered, the energy in the room shifted. His voice was
like a lasso and when surrounded by stillness, I felt my life as I had
known it gently slip away.
In a private interview the next day we spoke about my decision around
age six to be a monk, my entering a religious order at eighteen and
leaving a few years later, about cancer and Archangel Michael. He
assured me that cancer “would not be a problem.” Later in the waiting
room, looking over the Hudson, he said he didn’t much care for New York.
He noticed a scab on my hand where a small but deep wound was healing.
Smiling, he flicked away something invisible from the spot a few times. I
kept falling into his eyes and asked him if he was my guru. “Listen to your heart,” was all he said, his eyes twinkling mischievously.
I returned home, set up a little altar, placed his picture next to my bed and began using the vibhuti
in ways that seemed to make sense. I spoke to Swami in my mind and
heart. I never seemed to hear answers but that was all right.
That was April. In July, my life as I’d known it ended once again—
and not very gently at all. I returned to New York for a six-month
follow-up ultrasound and expected to hear the same news I’d heard every
four to six months for the previous five years — that the cancer was
still growing, but slowly and that what I’d been doing to manage it as a
chronic condition was still working.
Instead, I learned it had metastasized to my lymphatic system. I was advised to go to Holland for a unique MRI soon.
This would clearly show the extent of it and help determine appropriate
treatment options. Holland had been coming up for months in the
strangest ways.
On hearing the news, I wandered numbly around the city before going
to New Jersey to see my father. He is close to ninety and still living
independently, but he is now the child and I am the parent. I lied to
him by saying the cancer situation was unchanged. There was no way to
take this in. I couldn’t get my head around it.
Metastasized prostate cancer is medically incurable. From a medical
perspective, it’s the beginning of the end. Although I had always
believed I wouldn’t die of this cancer, and Swami had confirmed that,
there was no way to integrate this new development with my long-held
belief. I knew Swami would not let me down. I knew he’d help me find the
healing only God can provide. The only treatment option for me now was a spiritual one. It was a relief in a sense.
In August I arrived in Nijmegen on the easternmost edge of Holland,
curiously being within walking distance from Germany and Swami’s ashram. The MRI results were worse than expected and there were gracious apologies from the two kind-hearted doctors. Ay-yi-yay! Nothing about it felt real. I felt alone but hopeful. I was to see Swami again.
From the beginning, I’d believed the cancer was a wake-up call from my Self
to me; it would only be a death and rebirth of my spirit. It brought me
back to the spiritual path in a more focused and intense way than ever
before.
At fifty-eight, it had been forty years since I’d first entered a monastery. Since early childhood I knew I was supposed to do God’s work.
It had been crystal-clear to me up until my mid-twenties that my
purpose was that of a priest-teacher-counsellor. By my early thirties,
I’d been ordained in a non-denominational church after two years of
study. Dissatisfied, I investigated ordination in the Episcopal Church
and the Unitarian Association, visited the Trappist monks, sat Zen,
explored the metaphysical world, and attended the Kripalu Centre in
Massachusetts for years during which time it became an ashram of nearly 300 monks and nuns.
Yet, something about the Hindu experience felt good. I loved the
music, chanting and dancing. Even though I was well versed in world
mythologies, much of it seemed very strange. I could never see myself with a guru.
Perhaps I lacked faith and trust — or I wasn’t eating enough curry. As
time went by, demands of a growing family, two sets of aging parents and
running a business took me increasingly further from spiritual
practice.
At the end of August 2006, I arrived at Steffenshof. Swami was there and a mudra
workshop was scheduled in Freiburg. Madhevi would be going — she’d
always guided my evolving connection to Swami. Everyday at the ashram and workshop I seemed to meet another old friend. I’d landed undeniably right in my spiritual family. It was intoxicating and my feet had trouble finding the ground.Seeds of wisdom
Waiting for my interview with Swami, I collected seeds as I did
wherever I went. My life was plants and I’d worked as a horticulturist
for eighteen years. Since around the same time in childhood that I had
imagined becoming a monk, plants had been my passion.
I was fascinated by the giant Impatiens growing at the corner of
Swami’s house, by itself under a tree. This genus of plants gets its
name, meaning impatience, because its seed pods literally explode when
ripe. In the wrong location it can be highly invasive. I wondered how
this lone Impatiens got there. I cupped the pods in my hands
because the lightest touch could spray the seeds without warning. Just
then Swami came over, greatly amused at how this worked. He and I
playfully squeezed every pod, trying to catch the seeds, laughing and
talking as we did.
The ripe seeds were black and the unripe ones white. It’s been my
experience that a seed can continue to ripen if it’s fully formed,
germinate and grow. Swami took my cupped hand holding the fruits of our
fun-filled labor: it was a palm full of lovely black and white dots.
Just two days before, the MRI scan in Holland had shown the cancerous
lymph nodes in white and the normal ones in black. He said, “You know,
the white ones will never grow.” Defaulting to my professional knowhow I
said, “Well, actually, if you let them ripen, a lot of them will
germinate…” Squeezing my hand tightly Swami said loudly, with his eyes
blazing, “NO! …No, they will never grow. They have no life.”
In my mind I was saying something like, “He’s really good at Swami stuff but I guess he just doesn’t know much about horticulture…” Mamma mia. Smiling, he left and said I should come back to see him at two o’clock.Forty years in the desert
Back an hour later, I was still unaware of what had really happened
earlier. He gave me healing oil and told me firmly that I was not going
to die of cancer and that I needed to stay positive. He closed his hands
and eyes and said my name, Michael. When he opened his hands, there was
a ring. I flung my arms around him Italian-style and told him I loved
him. I don’t recall all he or I said. We were swimming in a warm sea of
feeling. I told Swami I wanted to be initiated and he said, “Sure, we
will do it tonight after darshan.”
Thereafter I went to the little chapel filled with icons
where I could assimilate what had just occurred. I recognized this as
the very same Labor Day weekend that it had been precisely forty years
ago when I’d first tried to become a monk: It was a biblical metaphor.
I’d entered the Dominican order in Providence, Rhode Island forty
years before. Now it seemed that forty years of wandering in the desert
had come to an end. Realizing the search was over, that I’d reached the Promised Land,
I lay face down on the floor and wept. Gratitude and relief overwhelmed
me. I’d been carrying broken-heartedness for so long. In that moment,
all of my spiritual aspirations from childhood were fulfilled. I knew I
was being healed in every way.
The seeds of a whole new spiritual life were sown within me that
night at initiation: I’m sure they’ll grow to flower and bear much
fruit. By divine design, my guardian angel and friend Madhevi was there
to witness Swami initiating me as jal brahmachari Shrihara. The name stands for Lakshmi and Vishnu, the eternal feminine and the eternal masculine.
It was only when driving back to Holland that I got the real meaning of Swami’s words while collecting seeds: The white ones will never grow! They have no life! Now I won’t be surprised when I sow all those Impatiens seeds if half don’t grow.
St. Thomas Aquinas, the medieval Dominican mystic, coined the phrase “felix culpa” to describe original sin, the happy fault, the fortunate fault in human nature that called forth the need for a saviour and brought Jesus to the world. Without the happy fault
of cancer, I might not have been blessed by Swami’s presence in my
life. Perhaps he was drawing me in all along, waiting for the vehicle of
cancer to bring me back to the remembrance of my true Self and a place of readiness.
On a retreat in the States that same year, Swami spoke of himself as a bridge – a bridge to God. God is the true destination.
Shrihara – Michael J. Chille – USA

On Swami Vishwananda’s twenty first birthday on the thirteenth of June, we went to Mauritius,
the island in Africa where Swami was born and grew up. There, Swamiji
materialized a golden Narashimha murti. One morning he called us into
his room, “Look what appeared on the wall! He exclaimed. “It is like a
shadow.” I told him, “It is Shirdi Sai Baba
sitting and blessing with his hand!” Months later, Swami was in our
house in Nairobi and called us one morning into his room, “Look what
appeared on the wall!” He said. I told him, “Again, it is Shirdi Sai
Baba sitting and blessing with his hand, like a shadow.”
Later, we sold our house in order to move into a bigger one. The new
people of the house painted this wall white. One week later they called
us and said, “You know this wall with the form of this holy man. We
painted it several times in one week and finally it had completely gone,
but today it has come back again the same as before.” “Well, you can
believe what you want”, I told them. “But I would suggest you leave it
as it is; if Sri Shirdi Sai Baba wants to stay in your home let it be,
it is a blessing for all of you.
In our new house, Swami came to visit and we had a Shirdi Sai Baba puja. Swami needed kumkum, but I only had red kumkum. He told me: “I don’t want this one; I need a good one, a yellow kumkum.” “But I don’t know where to get another kumkum
of that sort in Nairobi,” I replied. If you need it, you can
materialize it.” He did not say anything; he just went up to his room.
After a while he came down with a handful of yellow kumkum. The wall of his room was filled with this very yellow kumkum!